Hi,
Can anyone tell me how much I can expect to pay for a standard size installed European Kitchen for my newly bought house in Udon!

depends on what you buy...if you buy all the units, gas hob, extractor,sink etc and fit them yourself it might cost you around 30,000 bht....if you get a shop to come measure,make and fit the kitchen it costs a lot more.....i got mine from st.mall..its only a small kitchen with units on two sides of the room, about three metres by 4 metres, it cost me 85,000 bht for everything...

If you go any of the larger hardware operations like Home Pro, or global they have complete designed kitchens on display and you can calculate your costs fairly accurately. Labor is the inexpensic end of things.

Ours was around 40K including a stove with an oven, but it's a simple design






Oops

There is a wide range of ways to make a kitchen. One good way is to have the kitchen counters made of concrete and then put finished cabinetes from a place like Golbal, Home Pro, or Home Mart under them and on the wall. Another approach is to have Decor's Choice or Koncept Furniture make up a European style kitchen for you. Decor's choice is twice the cost of Koncept, for apparently the same quality. The drawback to both is that their cabinets are made of wood, and in a Thai kitchen without air conditioning, this is asking for trouble.

http://www.decorschoice.co.th/

Koncept Furniture (Across the road from the Tesco-Lotus store).
email koncept@sb.funiture.com, telephone 0-2962-7790 (looks like a Bangkok telephone number.)

Metalite They sell powder coated aluminum kitchens. Store in MBK Shopping Center in Bangkok, store #5C-28-29, 5th floor. Telephone 0-2620-9308. They have three locations in Bangkok. Their aluminum cabinets are likely to stand up well to heat and humidity, and they install in Udon.

its easy for the tab to reach up to (or even beyond) 200k if you want granite counter tops, a stainless sink, gas oven, etc.

Thanks Rick, we are now thinking of concrete bases and then as you say installing the wooden doors and surfaces. I think it will be in the end, more practicle and hopefully a bit less on the pocket!

My first thought is to suggest putting a concrete top on those bases and then select an attractive finish. Here's an article that described how to produce a finish that looks like burnished leather.

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How not to build in Thailand. A comment from a stupid farang woman
When I arrived in Udon Thani, a little more than 1½ year ago, was my knowledge about Thai culture and Thai ways of living small. I wrongly thought I knew quite a bit, because I had read a lot of books about Thailand, but they did not teach me the necessary things about building in Thailand, and as a woman I knew absolutely nothing about building. If I had a problem in my home country, I called a workman, and problem solved.
When my Thai husband and I arrived in Udon we lived in a room, until we found a suitable house that we bought.
We were very happy with our house. It suited us perfectly. Nice house, nice neighborhood, friendly neighbors. There were some small problems. Some of the lamps only worked occasionally, and a door did not close properly, but that I saw as a minor problem. You call a workman, and problem solved. But not in Thailand. After the workmans visit, the lamps that used to work occasionally , now stopped working at all, and the door was suddenly jammed. That was my first experience with Udon workmen, but not the last.
Have you ever noticed that workmen, only works in groups of three. One man actually works, and the two others watches and gives advice.
After living in the house about half a year, we decided that it now was time to change our small Thai kitchen into a big European kitchen-dining room. I made some drawings, about what I planned it to look like. A big kitchen and a store room with washing machine, all of it constructed on the side of the house. The store room is located behind the kitchen, with entrance from the back of the house.
The building of the kitchen was very quick. Soon I could make drawings of the kitchen units, and order this and oven, hood and so on. When the kitchen was up, it looked terrible. First of all, I had not realized that I am about 20 cm taller than most Thai woman, so the kitchen table was far too low for me. Secondly and worst, the kitchen people did not put the kitchen units the way It had been on my drawing, so the kitchen ended about 20 cm before the corner wall. This looks very stupid to me, but apparently not to the kitchen people. At the floor the kitchen goes in and out, so when you clean the floor, you have to go down on your hands and knees to clean the corners.
Another thing I did not know was that I had to put isolation on the roof. So now the kitchen is about 100 degrees Celsius all day long.
But all together I was reasonably happy with my new kitchen until the raining season started.
Then I discovered that it was raining in. Not only one place. But many, many places. All my cooking pots were in use. And together with the rain came the rats. I guess they enter the drainpipe from the washing machine in the store room and from there into the kitchen. And I think they came in the raining season, because they need a dry place to deliver their babies. And what better place, than my kitchen? Nice food, reasonable dry. Hilton hotel for rats.
So now we have had workmen out 9 times, and I think/hope the roof is tight now. I had to replace one of the kitchen units, which were destroyed by rain. A lot of rat poison and heavy metal covers with very tiny holes on the drain pipes hopefully have taken care of the rats, at least for now.
I thought I was well of, because I had a Thai husband, who could talk with the workmen, and control the work. The problem is just that he is Thai. To me it seems that half done is well done to Thais. For him it is not a big problem that there is rain in the kitchen, and a rat or two. Mai pen rai.
The thing is, that I have heard much worse stories about other farangs building I Udon.
I think, that if you want to build as a farang in Udon, you need a contractor or workmen from Bangkok, Pattaya, or some other place, were they are more used to the farang way of perfection. Or you need to be a handy man yourself, with a lot of knowledge about building.

Yes, it is hard to find good working men in Thailand - but they exist. The longer you stay and ask around the more people you will meet that can do this and that and after some time you end up with a phone list adressing all your needs. At least this is my experience.

But even with the best workers you have to supervise and control EVERYTHING you need - if you want to have it perfectly (or better as good as possible. Nothing here is perfect...).

Yes, it is hard to find good working men in Thailand - but they exist. The longer you stay and ask around the more people you will meet that can do this and that and after some time you end up with a phone list adressing all your needs. At least this is my experience.

But even with the best workers you have to supervise and control EVERYTHING you need - if you want to have it perfectly (or better as good as possible. Nothing here is perfect...).

IT ALL DEPENDS ON WHAT YOU CALL A EUROPEAN KITCHEN AS THERE ARE DIFERENT STYLES AND QUALITYS.

YOU CAN BUY THE PREMANUFACTURED ONES IN MOST FURNITURE SHOPS OR YOU CAN BUY A VERY GOOD QUALITY KITCHEN WITH MARBLE TOPS FROM HOME PRO OR DECORS CHOICE.

I HAVE JUST BOUGHT A KITCHEN FROM HOME PRO WITH IMPORTED MARBLE TOPS AND OVER AND UNDER CABINATES TOTAL LENGTH OF WORK TOPS 7 MTR WITH HOB SINK AND EXTRACTOR HOOD.

300.000 BHT

MOST THINGS ARE AVAILABLE IF YOU LOOK IN THE RIGHT PLACES, AND IF YOU BUY FROM HOME PRO YOU DONT PAY ALL THE MONEY UNTIL IT IS INSTALLED TO YOUR SATISFACTION

Just finished remodeling the kitchen about two months ago. Total cost about 100,000 Baht. Cabinets from Global, appliances from Global and Tesco.

The remodeling required constant supervision of the workman and a number of redos - but we're very happy with the final result.

nice kitchen,i better not show my wife the photo though.

very nice kitchen, just the kind we have in mind. my father in law is a good competent builder/ project manager, so hopefully it should'nt be a major hassle!! fingers crossed!!

SKYDIVER wrote:IT ALL DEPENDS ON WHAT YOU CALL A EUROPEAN KITCHEN AS THERE ARE DIFERENT STYLES AND QUALITYS.

YOU CAN BUY THE PREMANUFACTURED ONES IN MOST FURNITURE SHOPS OR YOU CAN BUY A VERY GOOD QUALITY KITCHEN WITH MARBLE TOPS FROM HOME PRO OR DECORS CHOICE.

I HAVE JUST BOUGHT A KITCHEN FROM HOME PRO WITH IMPORTED MARBLE TOPS AND OVER AND UNDER CABINATES TOTAL LENGTH OF WORK TOPS 7 MTR WITH HOB SINK AND EXTRACTOR HOOD.

300.000 BHT

MOST THINGS ARE AVAILABLE IF YOU LOOK IN THE RIGHT PLACES, AND IF YOU BUY FROM HOME PRO YOU DONT PAY ALL THE MONEY UNTIL IT IS INSTALLED TO YOUR SATISFACTION

What kind of kitchen do you get for 300,000 BHT?

and stop shouting at me

Skydiver, Capital letters represent SHOUTING, Cill man